Jamaatul Ahrar militant group says leader killed in drone strike

The leader of Pakistani militant group - Jamaatul Ahrar , who planned some of the deadliest suicide bombings in Pakistan, died after wounding in a US drone strike in Afghanistan, Asad Mansoor, a spokesman for the group, said in a statement.

A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has in the past also backed Middle East-based Daesh and has increasingly targeted religious minorities in Pakistan.

"Our leader, Omar Khalid Khorasani, was wounded in one of the recent drone strikes in Afghanistan. He was wounded badly, .."

The group, last year, conducted one of the deadliest bomb attacks in a public park that killed 70 people, many of them Christians, in the eastern city of Lahore.

The killing comes ahead of American Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's visit next week and is likely to further ease tensions between the often-wary allies, as Islamabad has been asking Washington for years to target militants who attack inside Pakistan and then hide over the border in Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, Ehsanullah Ehsan, an spokesperson of TTP (Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan), and later Jamaat ul Ahrar, had surrendered to Pakistani authorities. 

In a confessional video statement later released by the Pakistani military Ehsan said that the Indian and Afghan intelligence agencies had been providing assistance and funds to the TTP to fight Islamabad.